Pity The Living
by EchoResonance
Summary: You know the feeling you get when you're walking down a flight of stairs, and the next step is farther down than you thought it was? Running into that flat, and finding Mrs. Hudson quite unharmed, I felt something like that. * Nerves. Much like sentiment, it was generally a chemical defect found in the losing side. Which is why I didn't understand the pit in my stomach.
1. Only Now

_**Have some feels.**_

You know the feeling you get when you're walking down a flight of stairs, and the next step is farther down than you thought it was? Your stomach does a flip and your heart catches, right? Running into that flat, and finding Mrs. Hudson quite unharmed, I felt something like that. Only it was ten times stronger, the immediate fear almost crippling.

I don't know how he set up that phone call, but then, he is Sherlock. He had done much more intricate things than that before. And it had to be him behind it—of course it did. He wanted me to leave, quickly, and without him. That's why he had blown off Mrs. Hudson's "attack": because he knew she was fine, and he had to stay. Why would he _do_ that? Why did he want me to leave him alone, and why couldn't he just tell me? What exactly was he planning to do?

Heart sinking and stomach turning painful flips inside of me, I had turned on my heel and ran back out of the flat without a single word to Mrs. Hudson. I had to get back to the hospital. I had to, before Sherlock did something stupid without me.

But it was too late. I knew that even as I hailed the cab outside and flung myself through the door. Sherlock planned everything perfectly—he knew how I would respond once I found Mrs. Hudson alive and well, knew exactly what I would do. He knew I'd come straight back. He would've planned everything to the last second around my reaction time. But I still had to try. Just giving up wouldn't do any good. There was still a chance, however small, that I had time.

I got the call as I climbed out of the taxi right beside the hospital. I started to run inside even as I began to talk to Sherlock, but he didn't let me. He shouted at me, told me to turn around and stay put. Then he said to look up. Deep down, I understood instantly what was happening, but I had been in denial until…until…

His note. That's what he'd said. Why would he say that to me? Why would he do that to me? Make me watch? Why did he make me watch as, after telling me a lie so blatant even I could catch it, he tossed his phone aside, and take the quick way down? How could Sherlock do that? He never gave up, so why did he—why did he—I still couldn't say it. I just couldn't. But…I saw him jump. I saw him fall through the air, his coat flapping above him like a cape. And God, I could _hear_ him hit the pavement. There was so much blood, and people surrounded him before I could blink, and I couldn't get near him. I staggered to his side and tried to take his pulse from his wrist, but they took my hand away from him and shouldered me aside. They wouldn't allow me anywhere near my best friend. My only friend. I could only watch, strangers holding me back, as Sherlock was loaded onto a stretcher and rushed away. When he was gone, the others just seemed to vanish, leaving me alone, standing on the blood-soaked sidewalk.

When it started to rain, I let my shock, my fear, my despair out. I let it all out, and it streaked down my face as tears that became invisible in the water pouring from above. It was darkly appropriate, I thought, that even the sky should mourn the sight that it had just witnessed alongside myself. In the blink of an eye, the end of the greatest man I had ever known, the end of the man who had never had a friend before me.

Without knowing how I had gotten there my knees had hit the wet pavement, and I was still staring at the place where Sherlock had disappeared, as if hoping he would walk back around that corner, wiping the blood off with a towel and saying "Well, that was tedious. Hungry?" But he didn't. He never came back around that corner, and I was left, alone, crying like a child because somehow, the strongest and most invincible man that had ever been had just…gone. Right in front of me, he had just ended it all.

What happened after that was an unrecognizable blur to me. I think there was a funeral, in which few participated. I'm pretty sure Lestrade was there, understandably torn up, and possibly Anderson and Sally Donovan as well, surprisingly upset as well. I vaguely remember it being a closed-coffin affair.

The days have all blurred together. I found a job, and on occasion, Lestrade still comes around to talk and ask my opinion on certain cases. I was no Sherlock, but I had picked up some of his observation skills, and surprisingly, I actually did help solve a few cases. Still…nothing was the same. Anderson lost his job, stubbornly refusing to let the Sherlock case rest, which was startling enough to most people, and Sally barely talked, but I couldn't manage any interest. It was Sally, it was Anderson, it was the whole of London that had caused the tragedy in the first place. They were the most adamant that Sherlock was a fraud, and only now that he was gone did they realize their mistake. Only now that he was gone did they understand how much they needed him, and how wrong they were.

I haven't tried to make any more friends. Sherlock was my only friend, truly. The notion used to make me feel rather lonely, but not any longer, because I realized something else. Not only was Sherlock my only friend; I was his as well. I was Sherlock's first and only friend, and that…That right there makes me feel incredibly lucky. Blessed, even, to have had that amazing opportunity.


	2. A Chemical Defect

Nerves. A fool's response to something he knew to be inevitable. Only a fool grew _nervous_ waiting for something he knew would come very, very soon. Much like sentiment, it was generally a chemical defect found in the losing side, and not something I was familiar with. Which is why I couldn't understand the strange, nagging pit in my stomach as I waited for John's phone to go off. Nor could I still the wild fidgeting of my fingers, and so to avoid too much attention, I just found with one of the stress balls stashed throughout the hospital—how they were supposed to de-stress a person was anyone's guess—and made do with rolling it on the table and tossing it from hand to hand.

When at last John's phone rang, and my heart gave another lurch, I had to fight every impulse I had to call it all off. To tell him the truth—that Mrs. Hudson was fine, and that I couldn't let him go. If he stayed here with me, he would be one of three things: in danger, an obstacle, or both. I could never go through with what I had to do if I had him with me to talk me out of it. It hurt more than it should have when John had called me a machine, however that was how I was purposefully acting. I had to drive him away, to get him to go to Mrs. Hudson and buy me the time I needed.

I didn't figure out Moriarty's game as quickly as I should have—I was too focused on John. Where was he? The first time I asked that, I knew he was exactly half way to the flat, and that he was most likely bouncing his foot in agitation. Was he okay? The first time I asked that, I knew he was, because there had been no cause just yet to make me believe otherwise. The second time, his location was on the second step of the flight of stairs heading up to the flat, and he was still fine, albeit in thirty seconds, his heart will have sunk as he realized what I had done. I would ensure that he wouldn't be anything other than fine. The third time the question crossed my mind, despite the fact that I knew him to be within minutes of the hospital in a taxi, was the final time I could think about it.

There was one thing in Moriarty's scheme that I hadn't counted on, and that was him putting a gun in his mouth. I had my back-up plan ready and already working, of course, but that was still a startling shock. I had been hoping to avoid what I had to do next, to spare both myself and, more importantly, John from the pain, but it was my only option.

Adrenaline made the next bit a blur. I called John as I saw his taxi pull to a stop. I tried to tell him that I was a lie, that the papers were right, but as thick as my voice had been, frustration at having to tell John such a horrible lie destroying my façade, there was no way even he would believe me. I also tried to tell him. I did. Everything I told him was in the past tense. Then I paused, and said the only thing in present tense that mattered. I hoped and prayed that he would get it, but it was a very long shot in the dark, never mind all the times I had pointed out to John the importance of the present versus past tense in cases. "It's a trick. Just a magic trick."

He didn't get it, and I was out of time. I jumped. _They_ broke my fall. _They_ put the necessary details on and around me to make it convincing. _They_ surrounded me, knocked John down to disorientate him, and wouldn't allow him too close. He was a skilled doctor, and I had told _them_ so. If he got too close, he would realize that it was fake. He could only touch my wrist, and I had taken the necessary precautions to make that pulse reading inaccurate. _They_ wheeled me away, and left John on the sidewalk.

Never before had I felt the pain of loss, the need to ruin all my hard work just to get up and show him, than when I had to pretend death as my best, my only friend cried over what he believed to be my corpse. Nothing could have ever prepared me for the way his reaction would tear into me, made all the worse by the fact that I had to lie there and continue to watch, pretending I couldn't see it or anything else. I had to watch him crumple internally in pain as he lost the only friend he had, and there was nothing I could do.

Before John I had never known friendship. Not once had I been close enough to a person to understand why others were so agonized when they lost someone. Something told me I would no longer be able to be so detached, now that I finally could comprehend it all. John Watson, the best friend I could have had, the one I only asked for in silence, when no one could hear my weakness, would be beyond my reach for a long time. And I was intentionally putting him through the pain of watching his only friend being wheeled away after pitching himself off of the hospital roof. Maybe Sally Donovan was right, and John never should have come near me. He wouldn't have been hurt like this if he had taken her advice and gone. What was I feeling now? Although never having personally experienced it before now, I knew exactly what it was. But I had won this fight, so why?

Sentiment. A chemical defect found in the losing side.


End file.
